Welcome to the New Semester

The Spring 2014 semester has gotten off to a good start. Once again, CSULB's popularity is evident as Spring enrollments are running ahead of forecasts. We expect about 1,000 more students this Spring than last.

Applications for Fall 2014 admission also reached an all-time high, with 83,500 applications for undergraduate admission received by December 1. We believe that Long Beach received the 5th largest number of applications of any U.S. university. The Beach is hot! One of the planning conversations the campus will need to have this Spring will be about future growth.

Gorvenor's Proposed 2014-15 Budget

The Governor has released his proposed 2014-15 budget, in which he kept to the multi-year plan he outlined last year and included a modest 5 percent increase for the CSU. The increase is only about two-thirds of the amount requested by the Chancellor's Office, which did include compensation increases. We are presently waiting to see how the Chancellor's Office reconciles the system request with the Governor's proposal.

The Governor's budget also included $50 million in competitive funding for "educational innovation;" we don't know exactly how this will unfold, but we will be watching this item. While the Governor's proposal remains subject to approval by the California Legislature, it appears that state funding is on a stable course.

Research, Scholarly and Creative Activity Funding

With a stable outlook, we are pleased to announce that the Division of Academic Affairs is planning a significant increase in support for research, scholarly and creative activity (RSCA) for 2014-15. This increase creates the prospect that some particularly strong proposals may be awarded six units of reassigned time (3 Fall & 3 Spring).

Graduation Rate Increase

Last November, our Institutional Research Office reported that our six-year freshman graduation rate had reached an all-time high and a benchmark number: 60%. This was a larger increase than forecast. The graduation rate increase for transfers was even larger reaching nearly 80% for three years and nearly 86% for four years after transfer. These gains in student success are the result of hard work and focused effort by many faculty, staff and administrators over past years. It is even more remarkable that these have been attained on the heels of our worst budget years. The campus has much of which to be proud.

I look forward to continuing to work together to provide a great student-centered experience and graduating students with highly valued degrees.

Student Research Competition is Next Month

Faculty are asked to encourage graduate and undergraduate researchers and artists to participate in the 26th Annual CSULB Student Research Competition on Friday, February 21. Students interested in participating in the competition should submit a registration form and a five-page paper summary (5 copies required) by Friday, February 7.

Faculty are also invited to volunteer for potential “juror duty” the day of the campus competition (February 21 with a window of 12-5 pm). Faculty who are interested in volunteering should RSVP to Michelle.Terry@csulb.edu.

Responsible Conduct of Research Workshop

Students participating in NIH-funded research are required to complete the CITI Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) module along with face-to-face RCR training. To help students fulfill this requirement, the Office of Research and Sponsored Program is offering an RCR workshop on Friday, February 14 from 7:45 – 11 am.

Space is limited, so please RSVP to Nancy.Lewis@csulb.edu as soon as possible. Members of the campus community interested in RCR are welcome to attend, however, priority will be given to students participating in NIH-funded research.

Faculty: Give ATS Your Opinion About Campus Software

Academic Technology Services (ATS) is seeking input from all faculty regarding software products for which you would like to see the campus purchase site licenses.

Faculty are asked to provide input via an online survey by January 31. This survey includes questions about two products, Mathematica and MATLAB, which support numeric computation and analysis and have capabilities to provide visualization of results. However, if you don’t use either product, answer just two questions and then add your suggestions for the acquisition of other software.

Your input will help ATS better support you in your instruction as well as your research, scholarly and creative activities.